ciencia y narración

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The Scientific Community as Audience:Toward a Rhetorical Analysis of ScienceMichael A. OveringtonIntroductionIt is time that students of rhetoric bend their skills to an analysisof scientific discourse and the cration of scientific knowledge. Inthe light of rcent historical, philosophical, and sociologicalapproaches to the production of scientific knowledge, and even insome essays directed to rhetoricians, one (at least a sociologist suchas I) can find solid reasons for extending rhetorical analysis andcriticism to the process of knowledge production in science.After years of dalliance with the reconstructions of a variety ofpositivisms, hints of the "social" and "historicar are appearing inanalyses of scientific practice. Of course, the whole tradition of thesociology of science assumes a communitarian practice as the con-text for the production of scientific knowledge.1 Yet of more directpertinence hre is the growing importance of the work of ThomasKuhn,2 the debate between Kuhn and th criticai rationalists,3andthe undervalued work of Michael Polanyi4 and John Ziman,5which points to the centrality of "community" in understandingthe cration of scientific knowledge.

Ironically, th latter days of "positivismi struggle to eradicatemetaphysics and establish an objective standard of truth once andfor ail led it perilously close to using a notion of community as acriterion. The commitment of that tradition to the practice ofnaturai science as a measure of success and th logicai failure ofsuccessive reformulations of its criterion of meaning hve led to acollapse into what looks suspiciously like a consensual theory oftruth. In both Feigl6and NagelV formulation of "testability" as acriterion of meaningfulness, it is a collectiveagreementof scientistswhich establishes that a statement is testable or has been testedsatisfactorily.From a rhetorical point of view one might handle such a com-munitarian notion of science by the substitution of a conception ofPhilosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 10, No. 3. Summer 1977. Published by The Penn-sylvania State University Press, University Park and London.

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"audience" for that of scientific Community.As a resuit one couldthen understand the process of constructing scientific knowledge asa way of speaking about spcifie expriences before a limited andspecially trained audience that is authorized to establish that dis-course as knowledge.Thus, I shall suggest that science as a knowledge-producing ac-tivity may be treated rhetorically because the construction of scien-tific knowledge involves argumentation before an audience. Thisprsentation is sympathetic to Wei'mer'scontention that science isa "rhetorical transaction" because its characteristic inference (theadjunctive conditional) is argumentative in form,8 and toCampbelTs position that since scientific discourse is rhetorical"personaeare indeed implied by and discoverable in every scientificdiscourse."9 However, I am persuaded that basing the rhetoricalanalysis of science on the audience-conditioned character of scien-tific discourse is likely to prove less controversial than is Weimer'sargument. Even if further investigation should raise doubts abouthis reconstruction of science (as conceivably it might), it is unlikelythat we shall soon retreat to the notion of self-uttering, self-evidentdiscourse-as-knowledge which plagued the positivisms.In this brief essay I shall offer, first, a display of the importanceof a conception of scientific Community in the work of Polanyi,Ziman, Kuhn, and th criticai rationalists, and the consquent in-volvement of discourse and audience that it suggests. Second, con-sidering rhetorical analysis and criticism to be concerned with ailforms of audience-conditioned speech, I shall offer a simplerhetorical perspective on the construction of scientific knowledge.Finally, I shall outline a scheme for the analysis of scientific dis-course and exemplify its application to one of the social sciences,namely, sociology.Scientific Community

/. Polanyi and Ziman. The work of Michael Polanyi and JohnZiman forms something of a complimentary pair. Polanyi mainlydeals with th conduet of individuai scientists: Ziman concernshimself more with the social context for that conduct.

Polanyi understands science as a form of activity undertaken by



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individuals who are using skills acquired through a process ofapprenticeship. The personal information generated by thse in-quiries is then referred to the Communityof scientists forjudgmenton its scientific status. Hre I shall focus on his two major con-tributions, the notion of scientific conduct as a skillful activity thatis acquired through practical tutelage under some "master"; andsecond, his grasp of the scientific community as a traditionalcollectivity organized to control the practice and products of scien-tific activity.

Polanyi's view of science takes it as a practice which involvesskillful performances which are made possible by the kind of rules("tacit knowledge") that we use when producing grammaticalspeech. Native speakers of a language acquire their proficiency inthe production of speech through talking with audiences of skillfulgrammarians (other socialized native speakers) on the model ofdiscourse they hve heard, although they would be unable toreconstruct in dtail the rules which allow for the grammaticity oftheir speaking. Continuing this analogy, the process of acquiring agrammar of scientific practice requires an engagement in researchon the model of some skillful practitioner in whose person there isincarnated both th generai culture of science and particulartraditions within that culture. One can no more discover theculture of scientific research from its written results than one canconstruct a Stradivarius from measurements of an original.10As an apprentice, the naive scientist becomes acquainted notonly with the practice of inquiry, but also with its rationale

- apassion for making discoveries that will be true for th individuaiand valued by other scientists. The nophyte learns the ex-hilaration of a personal quest for knowledge that has to betempered by attachment to a validating collectivity. No matterhow persuaded th individuai might be of the beauty and truth oftheir vision of some aspect of the world, no matter that the in-dividuaFs belief in the truth of their discovery is conceived as abelief that all scientists would hold given the same information, thescepticism of the scientific community about the discovery mustlead to a personal scepticism. "Our vision must conquer or die."11

Polanyi takes the collectivity of scientists as an institution ofsocial control which legislates what is called "science" and who



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shall be allowed to practice it. The consensus among scientists asto what is of value to them, whaf is reliable, of systemic and intrin-sic interest, is made concrete in th many specialities that composescientific practice by individuals who watch over their own and ad-jacent areas. Since no one can watch all areas, judgment as to whatis admissable as scientific knowledge dpends on networks ofresponsible and authoritative critics held together by trust in eachother's judgment.Yet the traditional character of the scientific Community doesnot make it immune to change and disagreements. Polanyi believesthat controversies crucial to science may flare up around rivalSystems of explanation. Of the disputants in such situations, hesays: "They think differently, speak a diffrent language, live in adiffrent world, and at least one of the two schools is excluded tothis extent for the time being (whether rightly or wrongly) from theCommunityof science."12These controversies are resolved only byth proponents of some new understandingwinning the intellectualsympathy of their opponents through plausible argument andthereby persuading them of the scientific value of that position.But if Polanyi is concerned with the grammar of research in atradition-based Community, Ziman may be taken to provide acomplimentary emphasis on the rhetoric of research and com-munication in search of consensus. Ziman begins his account ofscience with an effort to distinguish it from other kinds of inquiry.He does this partly along the lines employed by Polanyi. Hefocuses on scientific investigation as a "practical art. It is not learntout of books, but by imitation and exprience."13Thus science forhim, as for Polanyi, is quintessentially the research practice ofscientists. However, he insists that the thrust of that research isprovided, not in a search for truth, but in a questfor agreement."Science is unique in striving for, and insisting, on a consensus."14Scientific inquiry is characterized by a restriction to issues aboutwhich it is possible to secure universal agreement (within a com-munity of scientists) through th application of a method that islikely to evoke unanimous acquiesence.From his exprience as a theoretical physicist Polanyi suggeststhree areas that are crucial to the production and prservation ofthis scientific consensus. The first of thse is the highly persuasive



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character of the scientific method; the second is a scientificducation that inculcates understandingof this method and its pur-pose; and finally there are the patterns of communication amongscientists.

Ziman agres with Polanyi that the scientific method does notprovide self-evident, ergo self-justifying knowledge, and then askshimself "How does this method lead to consensus?" His tentativeanswer leads him to formulate the scientific method as a potentand highly persuasive rhetoric. For example, when we examine theexperiment as a persuasive argument, it may be seen as a"reproducible observation," which promises, in effect, "If youwere there you would hve seen the same resuit."In presenting the results of scientific research using an ex-primental or some other technique, scientists try to act as critics oftheir own work. It is precisely hre, in the reconstruction of ex-primental (and one may assume other kinds of research) into theform that it takes in Journals, that Ziman focuses our attention. Itis in stating a particular experiment in a form that wouldcharacterize the conduct of that research in generai that there isprovided the potency of exprimentation as a rhetorical techniquecapable of generating universal consensus.15Yet Ziman recognizes that this consensus is an agreement amongscientists and realizes the importance of dealing with the processesthrough which individuals acquire the right both to support and tochallenge that agreement. "To change the consensus youmust . . . demonstrate that you understand and accept it as it is."16Thus, the ducation of th young scientist seeks to inculcate thenorms, traditions, and beliefs of those masters with whom th in-dividuai is apprenticed. In that relationship the nophyte learnshow to think with the traditions that th master incarnates and os-tentates. However, this docile acceptance is counterbalanced by theskeptical researchattitude: "For when research itself begins, ail thisis changed. Everything, suddenly, must be doubted and rethought.Nothing, nor anybody, is to be trusted. There is no authority butone's own intellect."17The young scientist must learn both when toaccept the authority of the consensus and when to resist it.The practice of scientific inquiry dpends, therefore, on the ac-quiescence of individuai scientists in th consensual agreement on



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norms, standards, rhetoric, problems, solutions, judgments, andthe like, which provide for th continuing rcration of a scientificconsensus out of the scepticism of research. Since there is onlysome limited control on the practice of experienced scientists, theyears of training have to develop a form of self-criticism which cor-responds to collective attitudes of the scientific Community.This criticai attitude is especially important, Ziman believes,when it comes to reporting research results and dealing with subs-quent citations and criticism. He argues that the individualicapacity to prepare work for publication, or to evaluate othermaterial that has been published, all dpend on this internalized"policeman." This is especially important to him because hesuggests that while publication makes research "public," it doesnot make it knowledge.Ziman takes the position that ajournai article, the fundamentalform of public communication among scientists, is no more thandata or information (despite the refereeing procedure) that mightbecome knowledge over time if it is neither ignored nor con-tradicted. This continuing assay of the status of journal articlesdpends on a Communityof individuai scientists who are socializedto the same standards, methods, authorities, and th like, so that,despite th occasionai error of judgment by an individuai, it ispossible to construct a universal agreement over a period of timeon what is to count as knowledge.18Nonetheless, individuai scientists are not completely on theirown after th formative years of apprenticeship. During that timein the master's laboratory the nophyte gains access into an "in-visible college,"19which Ziman understands as an informai set ofrelations among persons studying the same problems. Thoserelations are enacted in exchanges of letters, phone calls, pre-prints, at meetings, colloquia, and symposia where thse inter-national groups communicate information about "their" problem.It is membership in such a group which vitalizes th individualigrasp of the universal consensus. Indeed, invisible collges are thecommunities within which scientific consensus is constructed. It isprecisely thse groups of persons which represent the scientificCommunity to th individuai. It is their attitude that is takentoward work, it is their judgment that is sought, it is theirrcognition which is exchanged for public contributions.



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In this brief prsentation of the complimentary work of MichaelPolanyi and John Ziman I hve broached most of the ideas (if notall the dtails) fundamental to a considration of the part played bythe scientific community in the production of scientific knowledge.Because of the relatively undervalued status of thse two men Ihve chosen to approach the basics of this topic through their con-tribution, rather than more conventionally, through the work ofThomas Kuhn and the Popperians.20We cannot, however, entirelyneglect thse latter.2. Kuhn and th Criticai Rationalists. Remember we are explor-ing hre the importance of the concept of the "scientific com-munity." Thus, in looking at Thomas Kuhn, it is not to deal withhis work in any density, rather it is to discuss his majorcontributions - the notions of "normal" and "revolutionary"science. The whole issue of the relation between thse two forms ofscientific practice is at the heart of the debate between the Kuhnianand criticai rationalist positions.Kuhn argues that the relevant scientific community for theproduction of knowledge is not the collectivity of ali naturai andsocial scientists. Rather, he believes that it is the small collectivityof about a hundred persons which he defines as: "the practitionersof a scientific specialty . . . they hve undergone similar ducationand professional initiations . . . [and] hve absorbed the sametechnical literature and drawn many of the same lessons from it."21It is this small community (similar to Ziman's invisible college)that he takes to be the "producers and validators of scientificknowledge,"22where normal science is the order of the day andrevolutionary science an occasionai event.But what, after ail, is normal science? Primarily it is researchthat takes place within the intellectual limits imposed by a"constellation of group commitments" (formerly termed a"paradigm" but renamed a "disciplinary matrix").23This matrix isa set of lments shared by the members of some invisible collegeand has as its most important lment a set of shared exemplars (anotion parallel to Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge). In theirtraining, all scientists encounter problem solutions that are thebasis for scientific communities. These are th concrete results ofthe application of a set of generai principles which allow membersof the invisible college to "recognize" similarity among problems



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(and hence the most likely solutions) without there being an ex-plicit rule for that rcognition. Nonetheless, exemplars are onlyone lment in the intellectual armatorium of a disciplinary matrix;individuai scientists committed to particular matrices will alsoshare common dfinitions of crucial terms, metaphysical assump-tions that are required to ground the employment of analogy andmetaphor in research, and a set of values.

Normal science, then, is research conducted by scientists com-mitted to particular disciplinary matrices, and is understood as"puzzle solving"; research that more or less guarantees that "thetruly clever practitioner will succeed."24 The focus of normalscience investigation is upon such things as precise measurement,establishment of constants, the accuracy of prdictions, and thelike. Perhaps the most unusual characteristic of normal science isthat there is an absence of novelty in fact or theory; there is no dis-covery. The process of research is a kind of "mopping-up" inwhich persons try "to force nature into the preformed and relative-ly inflexible box that the paradigm [disciplinary matrix]supplies."25However, there are always anomalies which cannot be accountedfor within the disciplinary matrix. While members of invisiblecollges are usually able to agree that these are merely anomalies,under particular circumstances they become the "crisis" whichmoves members of a matrix from normal to revolutionary scien-tific practice. Although there are a number of possible resolutionsto such a crisis (it may be solved within the matrix, it may prove en-tirely obdurate to ali efforts), the solution by the construction of ascientific achievement that forms the basis for a new disciplinarymatrix is of most interest to Kuhn. This discovery grounds thervolution that constitutes the process of change in science.Yet, like other rvolutions, it does not bring universaljoy. Twogroups appear, one accepting the achievement as a resolution ofcrisis, the other resisting it. These groups then compete for accep-tance by uncommitted members of the invisible college. WhileKuhn uses a number of images to convey the diffrence betweenthese two groups, it is reasonable to conclude that he thinks per-sons committed to one or the other to be involved in worlds sodiffrent as to make communication about the achievement dif-



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ficult. In the comptition and argument between the two positionsthere is displayed the character of normal science under thediffrent rubrics thse positions espouse. It is through this displaythat the uncommitted members of the invisible college are persuad-ed to accept the new achievement.It is precisely hre that we can introduce the Popperian notion ofa "criticai tradition."26 For Popper, science is one among manyforms of human myth-making that is distinguished from ail othertraditions of myth production by a second order tradition, that ofcritically discussing the myths.27 The growth of scientificknowledge is not in the accumulation of observations, but in "therepeated overthrow of scientific thories and their replacement bybetter or more satisfactory ones."28For Popper, then, the institutional arrangements of science are(or should be) oriented to a program of methodologicalfalsification. Scientists should seek to test, falsify, rfute theirthories in ail their work; they do not begin anew each time theyconduct research. Scientists start from problems that confrontthem in the practice of their peers: "This means that you pick up,and try to continue, a line of inquiry which has the wholebackground of the earlier development of science behind it; youfall in with the tradition of science."29The practice of the scientificCommunitydisplays what is important in its tradition and guidesindividuals to those matters that are of current interest.

The diffrences between Thomas Kuhn and th criticairationalists, insofar as they concern our purposes in this essay, sur-round this issue of criticism and the nature of normal science.Clearly, if science is a process of falsification then there is no nor-mal science. Kuhn agres that "the central pisodes in scientific ad-vances are rvolutions";30yet he insists that (even as a logicaicounterpoint) normal science is required. If science is to advanceby bursting through frameworks, then we need the framework (thedisciplinary matrix of normal science) through which to burst.However, there is dispute between th Kuhnian and criticairationalist positions even on the nature of th criticai practicewhich characterizes the revolutionary science that both positionsaccept as the basis for scientific discovery. For criticai rationalists,the very essence of scientific inquiry is that ail positions held by



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scientists are opened to criticai investigation. Popper, himself, per-sists in stating: "[The] criteria oj rfutation hve to be laid downbeforehand: it must be agreed which observable situation, if actual-ly observed, means that the theory is refuted."31For Kuhn, on thother hand, this choice between one position and another is achoice between disjunct frameworks where it would be impossibleto secure agreement on the criteria of rfutation before any test.While he is prepared to assert that in debates between scientists onthe choice of a theory proper to their subject matter "neither partyhas access to an argument which resembles a proof in logic or for-mal mathematics,"32he is equally anxious to claim that the choiceis based on good reasons. Scientists choose one framework overanother because of its accuracy, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness,33orbecause th display of what normal science would look like underone or other of the frameworks is convincing.We need not pursue this matter farther. The genuine diffrencesbetween thse two positions must not disguise the emphasis eachplaces on the concept of the scientific Community.Indeed, for bothth Kuhnian and criticai rationalist positions, choice betweenscientific frameworks (or thories) is based on communitariancriteria, not timeless principles of rationality. Over and over inthse positions, as in the work of Polanyi and Ziman, one is ledback to the importance of the scientific Community. It plays acrucial part in the training of scientists, in th conduci of research,in the reconstruction of those inquiries into publications, and inthe process of judgment which confirms or denies a knowledgestatus to those publications.It is now time to explore more directly the frankly rhetoricalcharacter that the substitution of "audience" for "community"provides to an understanding of the cration of scientificknowledge. In so doing, we shall consider th individuai scientist asa "speaker," research as a "rhetorical situation," the scientificCommunity as an "audience," and the discourse which scientistsaddress to their communities as an "argument."Science as Rhetoric

Earlier it was suggested that the failure of the positivisms to



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provide a convincing analysis of the production of scientificknowledge, and the mergence of alternative accounts of thatprocess, was signalled, in part, by the collapse of late, dcadentlogicai positivism (neo-positivism?) into a consensual theory oftruth. Yet with the appearance of thse alternatives that tookseriously the importance of social and historical factors in the con-struction of scientific knowledge there also cornes a rcognitionthat this knowledge is not ipso facto self-evident, but that itdpends upon an audience for whatever epistemic status itachieves.

Since Descartes th primacy of logicai dduction as a form ofproof hasgone virtually unchallenged. Logicai positivism itself wasa philosophical movement that strove to assert an apodictic stan-dard for meaningful Statementsvery much in a Cartesian mood. Ingenerai, this has meant that the very rationality of non-logical(non-deductive) arguments has been highly suspect. Once,however, a communitarian theory of scientific knowledge isseriously entertained (and scientific knowledge is knowledge parexcellence from the Cartesian position), then the continuingneglect of argument whose status as knowledge dpends on an in-teraction with an audience becomes more serious. The applicationof rhetorical analysis to the process of constructing scientificknowledge is clearly important.Nevertheless, rhetorical scholarship has been little turned toargumentation in the various sciences. Of course, Kenneth Burkehas always maintained that scientific explanations(rationalizations), although of contemporary pre-eminence, areonly one among a number of competing rhetorics of motive.34Campbeirs essay on personae in scientific (really social scientific)discourse draws much of its interest from an impoverished use of aBurkean approach.35 The most adventurous rcent work isWeimer's thoughtful attempt to formulate science as a rhetoricaltransaction whose rationality is obtained in an openness tocriticism. Thatpsychologist's comment that "as yet there is little onthe audience in science. ... the scientific community as arhetorical audience . . . has received little attention from any dis-cipline or perspective" finds some answer in this sociologist's es-say.36These independent contributions from persons marginal to



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rhetoric are an interesting expansion into th humanities of thwell-known "creativity" that marginatehave displayed in scientificdiscovery and invention.These "marginal" ventures stand in contrast to the major con-temporary effort by a rhetorician to examine scientific argumen-tation. Chaim Perelman has deliberately restricted his approach to"the methods of proof used in the human sciences, law, andphilosophy, [in opposition to] philosophers who endeavor toreduce reasoning in social, politicai, and philosophical matters bytaking their eue from the modeis provided by th deduetive or ex-perimental sciences. . . ,"37 Therefore, in suggesting the in-strumentality of a rhetorical approach to understanding theproduction of scientific knowledge ofall kinds, it must be recogniz-ed that such analysis has, at yet, limited support in contemporaryrhetorical scholarship.In a brief sketch of a rhetorical perspective on the constructionof a scientific knowledge one can do little more than suggest thekind of issues a rhetorician might want to examine. One way to dothis is to fili in th concrete location in that process of fourfamilir, rhetorical concepts; "speaker," "situation," "audience,"and "argument." I shall represent thse concepts as four stages inthe production of scientific knowledge. This pattern is developedfrom (and is meant to resonate with) the earlier discussion of thescientific community:

1. The ducation of young scientists transforms them intolicensed speakers about matters that concern their com-munities.2. Scientists engage themselves in research situations thatare necessary conditions for their speech.383. As a resuit of their engagement in research,scientists con-struct and publish argumentswhich offer plausible reasons totheir audiences for judging the conclusions of thse per-suasions to be valid.4. Over periods of time scientific audiences provideauthoritative judgment on the status of thse arguments asscientific knowledge.

Yet this four-stage pattern is incomplete. Even a modestfamiliarity with Burke's pentad39would suggest the absence of anyspcification of the purpose of offering persuasive arguments to a



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validating audience. Ziman's position that science seeks for con-sensus through the persuasive prsentation of research findingscorresponds neatly to this incomplete pattern; and both are littlemore than disguised sophistry - the purpose of scientificargumentation is to be persuasive. Such a viewpoint cannot suffice.

Surely a major contribution that a rhetorical analysis can bringto the production of scientific kfiowledge is its criticai capacity toraise questions about the purpose of such persuasive discourse. Arhetorical analysis, therefore, can consider to what end persuasivescientific discourse is and (critically) should be directed withoutsurrenderingto the obvious, that its purpose is the production ofscientific knowledge. Rhetoricians are in a position to ask the pen-tadic questions about scientific knowledge; knowledge as what, forwhom, by whom, through what means, for what? But suchquestioning is necessarily a long-term proposition that will dpendon the acceptance of a rhetorical approach to science. Let me, hre,turn to the more modest task of amplifying the four-stage patternin the context of the possibility of thse criticai questions.The first stage of this process of the construction of sociologicalknowledge deals with the production of speakers. To speak as ascientist is a privilge, not a right. Many people use scientific terms,but they are not speaking scientifically; to do that requiresthat onebe recognized by other scientists as one of themselves. To be sorecognized involves individuals in a lengthy training program towhich few are called and from which fewer stili are chosen.

In such a training program individuals learn what is the basis forspeaking scientifically. They learn what kind of expriences arevalued by other scientists, and what expriences, therefore, theyshould seek out for themselves. They learn where to look for thingsto talk about, how they can look, and for what in particular theyshould search. They learn how to talk about thse expriences inplausible terms and what part of their searches are to be discussedand what ignored. Finally, they acquire an understanding of thenature of the audience that will "enjoy" their reports. Not only dothey learn what are its relevant characteristics, they also meet manyof its members, and, of paramount importance, they learn thatthey are themselves part of that audience. Thus, the first stage ofthis process is one in which scientists become equipped to construct



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scientifically interesting discourse and become legitimized asmembers of an audience that valutes similar discourse from theirpeers. As a resuit individuals can contain within them the collectivedialogue between speaker and audience, reproducing in theirthinking and practice the rhetoric of knowledge production.The second stage of the production of scientific knowledgerelates to the development by the trained speaker of a topic for dis-cussion through an engagement in a research situation. The choiceof topic and procdures of investigation will tend to be guided bythe possibilities that these offer for reconstruction into a convinc-ing research report. It is here that individuals acquire the personalexprience about which they must speak effectively in order to per-suade some audience of the scientific reality of their endeavors. Toa large extent one would expect that scientists' apprciation of thenature of persuasive argumentation will influence what is in-vestigated and how it is studied. Until recently, there was noplausible way to speak about extra-sensory perception to scientificaudiences: the topic was not investigated. Thus, through individuaiscientists' perception, their audience is able to influence theresearch process itself.As we move from stage two to stage three, we shift from ex-prience itself to a reconstruction of that exprience in the form ofa persuasive argument. It is with publication that scientists speakabout the rhetorical situation of their research so as to persuade askeptical audience of the universal character of their personal con-clusions. At what point one can talk about "publication" is notclear. In generai, however, I would argue that one can placepublication as that point in the process of knowledge constructionwhere th individuai or collective involved in research relinquishesexclusive control over the meaning ofthat work and subjects it to acriticai audience that is not internai to the investigation. While thispoint may refer to tlphone conversations, pre-prints, sendingmanuscripts to Journals, and the like, it is not unreasonable toassociate it with actual publication in a journal. At this stage,traditional methods of rhetorical analysis could come into play inorder to examine the process of argumentation employed by scien-tists in efforts to persuade their audience of the validity of theirconclusions.40



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Stage four of this process of scientific knowledge construction istemporally the longest. Hre scientific audiences provideauthoritative judgments on the published argumentation of theircolleagues, deciding whether or not they should be treated asknowledge. As a rhetorical process we are hre dealing withcriticism of arguments that is based on their success or failure atthe prsentation of vidence, their persuasiveness, or sometechnical defect in the use of argumentation. These criticaijudgments may be displayed in conversations, published com-ments, citations, review articles, and so on. The consensus of scien-tific audiences, however, is available only after some time, whenthse criticai judgments hve been assimilated and generaiagreement reached on the status of a particular piece of work.41Itis this consensus which transforms a published argument intoknowledge or nonsense.

The Analysis of Scientific Discourse: The Case of SociologyThe easiest place to begin the application of this rhetorical modelis with an examination of stages three and four, where the publish-ed arguments are susceptible to the tools of rhetorical analysis. In

choosing a scientific discipline as an exemplar, however, it is likelyto be most convincing if I use one of the social sciences; thus I drawon Perelman's pioneering efforts. Clearly, th naturai sciences are atougher nut to crack. Sociology recommends itself because I ammyself a sociologist, because what is taken as sociologicalknowledge is being increasingly pressed into practical service bygovernment and private institutions, and because there are suf-ficient reasons to believe a priori that its argumentation is far fromdeductive in form.

The kind of framework which Perelman provides may well beunique in contemporary rhetorical analysis.42Given his intentionto develop a theory of argumentation for the human scienceswhere non-deductive reasoning is used, I hve chosen to adapt andexpand his work. The resulting analytic scheme has proven helpful(when applied to journal articles) in tracing the various ways inwhich researchers provide their audiences with a sens of the in-vitable reproducibility of their findings and conclusion.43 In this



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brief essay the scheme has to be skeletal in its prsentation. In es-sence, th scheme directs the amalystto a sries of inquiries abouteach article in order to understand how it may be reconstructed asa rational attempt to establish particular conclusions as plausible.Moreover, in practice, analysis should be guided by theorganization of specialties in sociology, whether one conceivesthem as based on a research tradition, on a particular technique(experiment, survey, observation, and the like), on an invisiblecollege, on broad or narrow paradigms and exemplars, orwhatever. Hre I shall prsent the scheme quite generally.First, authors need to use a language that is shared with theiraudience, thus one needs to discover what special vocabulary (inaddition to terms shared by ail English-speaking sociologists) isemployed. Second, there hve to be some agreements on how theargument is to begin and how the attention of an audience is to besecured; however, most pices begin by an attempt to secure theaudience's attention.

There are, moreover, spcifie agreements that a speaker has topresume in order to make an argument. For sociological discourse,there will be assumptions about th character of society and thepersons that are its constituting lments. Second, the speaker hasto presume that what is being reported can be justified as im-portant to investigate and that the techniques employed areappropriate. Finally, some set of "facts" will hve to be asserted asa starting point. Of course, in this display of "facts" one findsvidence of the current epistemic status of other work in the field.Nonetheless, the core of such a rhetorical analysis must be toreconstruet the form of argument employed so that one can findhow the conclusion drawn is plausible. I hve employed four broadtypes of argument. First, one might find more or less completedeductive arguments; a variety of inferential forms can beemployed.44 Of considrable interest hre must be the sources ofth various premises that ground such arguments. Logicai formsare included hre in order to insist on the rhetorical character ofany argument when made before an audience. Logic is not self-uttering, and even self-evident conclusions may fail to persuadeSecond, one can expect "quasi-logical" arguments, those which ac-quire their plausibility from a gross similarity to logicai forms, e.g.,incompatibility, ridicule, comparison.



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The other two types of argument are perhaps less familir. Thesetry to establish th "reality" of some factor (a cause, an intention, agenerai rule of conduct, and the like) by establishing their con-nection to either some already accepted "real" or establishing agenerai reality from a particularone. The classic and most familirform of the argument, which tries to establish a connection of someevent to what is recognized as a "reality," is the causal argument.Hre, through an establishment of sufficient and necessary con-ditions, through corrlation, or simply through assertion, a "real"effect is shown to be related to a cause that may then plausibly betaken as equally "real." Another form of this kind of argument,familir to sociologists, asserts the "reality" of some individualiconduct as caused by the agreed "reality" of th individualimembership in some social group.The last type of argument, the establishment of the nature ofsome generai "reality" through a particular instance, can best be il-luminated in the argument from example. Hre some particularin-stance of social conduct is treated as providing vidence "real"enough to justify drawing a conclusion about the "reality" of agenerai rule that it particularizes. The technique of drawing con-clusions about spcifie populations of individuals from limitedsamples is a very characteristic use of this argument.In addition to th generai argument that serves as the basis for aspeaker's conclusions, there will also be a variety of subsidiaryarguments that buttress this main line. One may use precisely thesame four types of argument to analyze their variety, placement,and function in the overall texture of the article. Finally, one mayneed to consider "non-technical" arguments, those pices ofvidence that are excluded from the formai rhetorical argument.Thus, the prestige of the speaker's institutional affiliation, thespeaker's rputation, the kind of foundation or granting agencythat funded th research, whether or not the paper has been readpreviously, and the like, may ail affect the plausibility of theargument.45

Having developed a sries of rhetorical descriptions of journalarticles in sociology, what is one to do with them? The instrumen-tal pursuit of rhetorical analysis is meant to provide an explanation(even if partial) of the conditions (particularly the rational con-ditions) which influence validating audiences in establishing the



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epistemic status of attempted contributions to knowledge. Onceone is satisfied that scientific (in this case, sociological) knowledgeis produced through non-deductive techniques, then it is of someconsidrable moment, in the face of the prminent legitimacy ofscientific rationalizations, to understand just what techniques areused.In the case of sociology, then, it would be necessary to in-

vestigate the relation between various forms of argument and theactual, or probable, acceptance of the conclusions presentedthrough them as knowledge. Are ail forms of argument equallyplausible? I would suspect that they are not; rather, that there arequite well-defined audiences which are differentiated by their ex-pectations about argumentative form. Experimentalists, for ex-ample, regard ail conclusions as anecdota unless they arepresented through hypothetical inferences and the consquent af-firmed or denied experimentally. On the other hand, the vast ma-jority of conclusions in sociology is presented through much lessplausible arguments. It is by no means obvious the extent to whichargument, rather than pre-existent intellectual commitments, in-fluences acceptance of conclusions. Only some considrable in-vestigation can answer such a question.Conclusion

It has been alleged that when we conceive the construction ofscientific knowledge as involving persuasion, consensus, andpresumably, therefore, politics, we fall into a relativism that fails toexplain the cumulative success of scientific knowledge in under-standing the world around. Further, it has been alleged that suchan approach rejects the privileged position of scientific knowledgeon behalf of a new variant of an intellectually destructive "roman-ticism." Perhaps.It is certainly clear that this discussion of the scientific com-munity, coupled as it is with an invitation to a rhetorical analysis ofscience, may undermine the mystique which some reconstructionsof scientific practice hve fostered. Yet, if such an approach leavesthe cumulative success of scientific knowledge unexplained, mustwe throw it out? Do we allow the disguised sophistry of an appeal



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to successful practice (and hence, in my formulation, successfulargumentation) stand unexamined? If we are to reach beyondrelativism and commitment to privileged knowledge, then it shouldnot be on the basis of a run-down Cartesianism, or a sophistrywhich masks the consensual characterof its own criteria of success.

Few would doubt that scientific knowledge holds a privilegedposition in this contemporary world. But debate still rages on overwhat is, or should be, the basis for this privilge. Is our capacity towonder so eroded that the spectacle of a human Communityproducing a privileged body of knowledge out of its activity anddiscourse leaves us unamazed? A rhetorical analysis provides achance to wonder systematically how individuai beliefs can becomecollective and privileged knowledge through a process of per-suasion. In our world, where the allegedly self-evident character ofscientific knowledge so often blocks attempts to question theappropriateness of action based on such knowledge, a rhetoricalapproach to understanding how scientific knowledge is formed canrestore questions of the purposes of scientific inquiry, or practicalaction based on scientific knowledge, to rational discourse.*Department of SociologySaint Mary* University, Halifax

NOTES1 Three rcent sources can serve as an introduction to this tradition. Joseph Ben-David and Teresa Sullivan, "Sociology of Science,'* in Annual Reviewof Sociology,vol. 1, d. Alex Inkeles and Neil Smelser (Palo Alto, California: Annual ReviewInc., 1975), pp. 202-22 provides a functionalist overview of rcent literature. On theother hand, the papers of two rcent symposia that appear in American BehavioralSdentisi 19, no. 6 (July-August 1976), and Social Studies of Science 6, nos. 3 and 4(September 1976) offer a diffrent, and from a rhetorical viewpoint, moresimulatine sries of approaches in the sociology of science.2 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Rvolutions(Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1970).3 This is well summarized in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, d. Imre

Lakatos and Alan Muserave (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1970).4 His more important volumes are The Study of Man (Chicago: Phoenix Books,1959); Personal Knowledge (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); Science, Faith andSociety (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1964); The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NewYork: Anchor Books, 1966).



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5 Public Knowledge: The Sodai "Dimension f Science (Cambridge: At the Univer-sitv Press. 1968).6 Herbert Feigl, "Operationalism and the Scientific Method," PsychologicalReview 52 (1945), 257.7 Ernest Nagel, TheStructureof Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,1961), p. 44.8 Walter B. Weimer, "Science as a Rhetorical Transaction: Toward a Non-justificational Conception of Rhetoric," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 10 (1977), 1-29.9 Paul Newell Campbell, "The Personae of Scientific Discourse," QuarterlyJour-nal of Speech 61 (1975), 391-405.10Polanyi and, after him, Kuhn and Ziman, established the injunctive character ofscientific training. For thse three scholars, nophyte scientists learn research byfollowing the authoritative practice of their tutors, and Weimer's grasp of thisrelationship as "injunctive tuition" is in accord. However, it is not clear, as he alsoasserts, that scientific communication "very literally is a *cookbook' endeavor - itis a matter of recipes for conceiving, perceiving, and doing, and the recipes aregivenas injunctions" (p. 12). Certainly, Polanyi insists that there are no such formally ex-plicit rules for doing research. As persuasively, H. M. Collins, "The Seven Sexes: aStudy in th Sociology of a Phenomenon or the Replication of Experiments inPhysics," Sociology 9, no. 2 (May 1975), 205-24, prsents vidence that the com-mand of scientific communication (presumably, "Go thou and do likewise, i.e.,replicate") is not easy to obey. If scientific argument persuades through its injunc-tive character, then perhaps it succeeds best when the audience accepts this in-junction as a subjunctive conditional. If they were to foHow the command, theywould hve considrable difficulty in producing a replication11Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, p. 150.12Ibid., p. 151.13Ziman, p. 7.14Ibid., p. 13.15Ziman's views on replication are similar to Weimer's. However, Ziman does notbase the plausibility of the experiment on its actual replication: "The guarantee ofthe validity of the information is not that th recipe has been tried ten thousandtimes successfully . . . but that the original experimenters are well-trained, skillfuland honest, and know that their assertions could be verified by anyone willing totake so much trouble" (ibid., p. 35).16Ibid., p. 64.17Ibid., p. 72.18Two rcent studies of this process of transforming research findings into scien-tific knowledge (personal into scientific knowledge, for Polanyi) are C. NigelGilbert, "The Transformation of Research Findings into Scientific Knowledge,"Social Studies of Science 6 (1976), 281-306, and BrianWynne, "C. G. Barkla and theJ Phenomenon: a Case Study in th Treatment of Dviance in Physics," SocialStudies of Science 6 (1976), 307-47.19An extensive discussion and empirical application of this concept may be foundin Diana Crne, Invisible Colleges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972).20Kuhn's basic position may be found in TheStructureof Scientific Rvolutionsandthe 1970 "Postcript" to the original. His replies to Popperian criticisms are wellpresented in his two essays in th Lakatos and Musgrave volume. That same volumecontains a most useful summary of a variety of criticai rationalist objections to hisapproach. Some other essays which touch on the debate between thse two positions

are John Law, "Is Epistemology Relevant? A Sociological View," Philosophyoj theSocial Sciences 5 (1975), 317-37; Joseph Agassi, "Genius in Science," Philosophyojth Social Sciences, 5 (1975), 145-61; Tom Settle, I. C. Jarvie, and Joseph Agassi,"Toward a Theory of Openness to Criticism," Philosophy of th Social Sciences 4(1974), 83-90; Derek Phillips, "Paradigms and Incommensurability," Theory and



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43 Preliminary testing of a classificatory framework for th rhetorical analysis ofsociological speech, "Rationality in Sociological Discourse," indicates that it maywell be a useful guide to such analyses in th hands of persons with some expriencein both rhetoric and sociology. The major difficulty that this framework suffersfrom at this time is securing agreement among analysts on what is to be taken as thmain argument of an article.44The adjunctive conditional, which Weimer takes as the characteristic form ofscientific inference, is not a reconstruction that my students and I hve employed.Sociologists concerned for logicai forms of argument are usually so persuaded of thelogicai positivisti view as to make hypothetical inferences a more likely reconstruc-tion. Certainly, we hve discovered no arguments that are explicit in the use of theadjunctive conditional.45 Weigert discusses thse arguments in sociology and H. M. Collins, in 'TheSeven Sexes" (see n. 10, above), illustrtes their importance in physics.Rhetoricians who are willing to accept an instrumental use of rhetorical analysis inunderstanding the production of scientific knowledge will, at some point, hve tocorne to grips with comments like Barkla's that "Certain schools of sociologicalthought view verbal social interaction [presumably, therefore, scientific discourse]as a form of rhetoric, overlaying and rationalizing a tacit world of power and prac-tice" (p. 337). Perhaps non-technical argument is the top of the iceberg of "powerand practice" that merges in discourse.* Lloyd Bitzer and Edwin Black first introduced me to th work of KennethBurke and Chaim Perelman and encouraged my early adventures in rhetoricalanalysis. Warren Hagstrom and Donna Kasdan were helpful with their criticisms ofan earlier version of this essay which was presented at the Tenth Annual Conferenceof Atlantic Anthropologists and Sociologists, March 21, 1975.This latest revision isfurtherendebted to an anonymous reviewer and the Philosophyand Rhetoriceditor'sgood offices in providing a gallery proof of Walter . Weimer's important paper(Philosophy and Rhetoric, 10 (1977), 1-29. I remain responsible for whatever errorsthis essay still contains.

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